1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to receptacles for pills, tablets or other medication, and more particularly is directed to improvements in medication receptacles of the type having a time indicator associated therewith.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When prescribing a drug in the form of pills or tablets, it is customary for the doctor to indicate that a specified number of the pills or tablets are to be taken or administered at certain time intervals, for example, at three hour intervals. Further, two or more drugs may be prescribed for a patient and may be required to be taken or administered at different time intervals, for example, pills or tablets containing one drug may have to be taken every three hours while pills or tablets containing another drug may have to be taken every four hours. Frequently, the patient or nurse encounters difficulty in remembering when the last dose of a particular medication was taken or administered, and such difficulty is particularly encountered in the described situation where two or more drugs are to be taken at different time intervals. In such circumstances, there is always the danger that one of the drugs may be taken too frequently, or that the time intervals prescribed for the respective drugs may be interchanged.
In an attempt to assist patients and/or nurses in accurately recalling when a medication, for example, in the form of pills or tablets, was last taken or administered, it has been proposed to provide medication receptacles with time indicators. Many of the existing medication receptacles with time indicators, for example, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,425,456, 2,066,183, 2,111,637 and 3,960,713, include a container for the pills, tablets or other medication having an opening at the top and a closure or cap for sealing such opening which is comprised of two relatively rotatable parts. One of the relatively rotatable closure parts has a circularly arranged scale of spaced apart hour designations and the other of such parts has an index cooperating with the scale for selectively indicating various time in response to relative turning of the two parts of the closure. In another proposed medication receptacle with a time indicator, for example, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,766,882, the container for holding the pills, tablets or other medication is provided with a bead extending around the opening at the top of the container, and a closure or lid is adapted to snap over such bead for closing the container and, in such closed condition, is adapted to turn relative to the container so that an index or pointer on the lid may cooperate with a scale of hour designations spaced apart about the container immediately below the lid for selectively indicating various times in response to turning of the closure or lid relative to the container.
In using the above described existing medication receptacles, the time indicator is positioned to indicate the time when a pill, tablet or other medication from the respective receptacle or container has been administered or taken so that, thereafter, the prescribed time interval to the next taking or administering of the medication can be readily calculated. However, the foregoing assumes that the patient or nurse will correctly remember the time interval prescribed for the medication in a particular receptacle and will not confuse such time interval with the time interval for another medication prescribed for the patient. Such assumption may not be justified, particularly when the various medications are being taken by the patient without supervision, and when the condition or illness being treated, or one or more of the medications may induce a lack of alertness.
Widespread use has also been made of so-called child-proof receptacles for pills, tablets or other medication in which, for example, a lid for sealing or closing the opening at the top of a container is turnable relative to the latter and is removable from the container only when the lid is disposed in a single predetermined rotational position in respect to the container. Such predetermined rotational position of the lid is established by alignment of an arrowhead or other index embossed on the lid with the corresponding index provided on an adjacent portion of the container. Since an infant or very young child would not know, or have the manual dexterity necessary to effect alignment of the indices on the lid and container prior to seeking to remove the lid, the described receptacle is generally effective to prevent accidental ingesting of the medication contained therein by an infant or young child. However, the described child-proof medication receptacles do not assist an adult nurse or patient in administering or taking medication or medications at the prescribed time intervals therefor.